Thursday, August 1, 2013

Spain Madrid MTC

The Missionary singing on the steps of the Madrid Spain Temple.

Can you see him? Fifth row up, against the brick wall, aqua tie.

It's been a long week waiting to hear again from The Missionary. I've been checking my email all day. Finally The Greek forwarded it to me from work. He sounds like he is doing great! I knew he would. I will be updating his mission with pictures and select letters on my blog for the next two years and linking it to facebook so family and friends can follow along.
Hola Familia!

This email will be my update of everything going on with my mission so the whole family can read! The shift key on a spanish keyboard is weird so I'm not going to use it.
I love it here so much. I don't even know where to begin. We got here and everything was crazy and we were all so tired. I got my first campanion Elder Fonseca, first day we were getting along a little. Now he is literally like my brother. The second day we were making each other laugh like I've never laughed before in my life. We are the same person it is so awesome! We laugh together so much, I love it. He is from Pleasant Grove and he graduated when he was 16 because he skipped a grade. He is the coolest guy and being his companion is truly a blessing. In my district there are 4 elders and 4 sisters. The other two elders are the coolest guys. One is Elder Farrel and the other is Elder Schmidtlein. The first is from Lone Peak and the other is from South Dakota. The girls are amazing as well. Two are from Utah, one from California, and one from Oregon. Our district is like a family, we all love each other so much. I feel like everyday when I wake up I am going to go laugh and study the gospel with my best friends.
Here's a cool story for you all. On Saturday we went into a park in the city of Madrid. It is huuuuuuge. It is basically like Central Park in New York City. We go there every Saturday to teach the gospel with people at the park. Me and my companion walked around for maybe 30 minutes just saying hello to people and starting small conversations. We met a family and we had a 40 minute conversation with them... in Spanish! I was speaking it so well and I could understand everything they said. I gave them a Book of Mormon and they accepted it. They said they would read it and they filled out a referral card so that the missionary's could come visit them later. It was a mom, dad, daughter, and daughter's friend. The daughter's friends name was Catalina. She kept asking me if i had a facebook and wanted to take pictures with us because we were Americans. I told her I couldn't have a facebook on my mission and she said she wanted to write me emails to learn more about the gospel! So I gave her my email address only because she lives in Romania. And don't worry it's not against the rules I checked. Everyone at the MTC keeps saying I'll get a lot of conversions because of my good looks. Whatever. Anyway, later in the park we met some people from China who spoke English! It was hard for me to speak English because I'm so used to Spanish. They said that they didn't believe in God and they didn't know who Jesus Christ was. I also gave them a Book of Mormon and they said they wanted to read it! They filled out a referal so they could learn more from the missionary's too! It is amazing that I have already given away 2 Books of Mormon and I can speak the language so well! The Lord really does have a hand in this and I know it.
Every day we have activity time. We go out in the streets and there is this awesome graffitied street soccer court. We play every day and I must say that I'm getting good. Our teachers play with us and they are amazing. Also my companion played on a highschool team back home and he is so good. It is so much fun.
I realized out here that getting letters is the best thing ever. Tell people to write me more letters. Every time someone gets one it is the happiest thing and they run around screaming. The temple here is beautiful, we've done two endowment sessions and I love it. Everything is going good, I love you all and keep writing me my people!

No comments:

Translate

The Crew

Hi, I'm Ria. I'm married to a Greek. No, I didn't say geek, I said Greek, but he is a super smart techno-genius. We have 3 boys: The Missionary (The Teen & Teen 1), Teen 2 (The Tween), and The Kid. They are ALWAYS hungry! I love writing, reading a good book, treasure hunting, and traveling to new places with my family.